


500 miles

by dhabitude



Series: village people party [3]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game), Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (It has a name now!!), 500 miles because pete moves twice, Death, Gen, M/M, Monsters, and i imagine that invlolves a bit of walking, bert gives people ale, bert n yvonne n pete the blacksmith n mary and alice, but - Freeform, but i dont like this so i may dlete n re upload, but i like pete, geralt hits on pete!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, i imagine jaskier does as well, no keira in this guys smh, this is quite #bad guys i im p ashamed ngl, villages
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 20:28:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,510
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26603746
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dhabitude/pseuds/dhabitude
Summary: a witcher kills a werewolf, a blacksmith hates him to a certain extent.or; pete the blacksmith thinks about his past a lot
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Jaskier | Dandelion
Series: village people party [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1917343
Kudos: 15





	500 miles

Maidenbog was a lovely little village, less than a days ride away from Oxenfurt, and just about three from the sunny village of Bowdon, were Pete grew up. He had been raised in a small cottage with his mum and three brothers and has spent most of his younger years chasing Solom and Mart and Buln around the wheat fields. His mother told stories of creatures with gnarled teeth and spikes that came out of their bodies and people who would protect them if ever a creature -"a monster!" his brothers would scream in coming years- was to pop up, with huge swords strung up on huge backs.

''Witchers", Pete would whisper at age five, what he would declare himself at age seven, stick in hand, and what he would spit at age fourteen, when a monster that smelt of death had crawled up out of the earth and killed his brothers, age eleven and fifteen.

"Sounds like a ghoul, my dear boy!" A hunter with a bit of a belly and a death wish had said jubilantly, clapping fourteen year old Pete on the shoulder, who had run away as fast as he could, spoiling crops and with his brothers' blood spattered across his face, who had lived to tell the tale to men who passed through the village in the year to come.

"I know." Pete had said back, surly and hormonal and angry and wishing he had three brothers instead of the one, who was nineteen and off in some village down south, not here with Pete, who desperately wanted someone.

His mother moved him down to Mart when the hunter died, and the one after him, and the one after him. No witcher ever showed up, and so Pete had to leave his home and his friends and his very badly made tree house and the place he had grown up in, where two graves lay empty. Mart welcomed them opened armed, his wife too round with a child to stand.

The village was nice, but it didn’t have a lake, and it didn’t have summer festivals, and it didn’t have his brothers. Pete was angry and surly and hormonal and so his mother shoved him at the local blacksmith, who set him to banging out pots and pans for the village when he was angry, and teaching the finer work of sword and armour making as he grew into himself. The blacksmith was old and widowed and treated Pete like a son and had a white beard that was used to identify him when a monster that left slime killed him and Pete's mother one day.

No witcher came to the rescue and so the monster picked villagers off one by one and bandit gangs crept closer and closer to the village until one night they were just there, swords swinging and teeth black and smelly, setting houses alight and killing Mart, who wouldn't leave his wife's body when told to.

"Move, boy!" The bandit was blonde and wiry, barely a man himself, but he knew how to swing a sword. Mart didn't. Fire burned his and Marian's bodies and Pete held their crying toddler in his arms as he watched from the woods, shivering and scared of the monster. No witcher came to save Pete and Bernard from the monsters who slew his oldest brother, or from the one who killed his mum and the blacksmith, nor from the one who had haunted him since he was fourteen.

And so Pete was surprised when, at age twenty eight with a nephew off at war, a witcher arrived in his villages time of need.

Maidenbog was nice, with an orchard and fields of crop and a middle aged couple who had welcomed Pete and his nephew in, covered in soot and crying. Bert and Yvonne set up a safe space for the villagers, serving ale until late and sending everyone home with candles and lanterns whilst a werewolf roamed the woods and the orchard.

They had wanted to go after it, the elders and the tough men with smaller backs than Pete the Blacksmith's, had said it would be easy.

"Quick and simple, aye?" Pete had grinned, baring his teeth. "Won't even be able to identify ya, ya know that? I'd have to make ya different swords and sent them back to your wives instead of ya."

And the macho men and their wives' all panicked and muttered and Bert glared at Pete while giving Emma a cup of water. "We could get a witcher." The innkeeper spoke, the room falling silent because no elder held more power than Bert and Yvonne did.

"Witchers are child's tales, old man." Pete had shouted later, in the backroom after nobody had listened to him. "I'd have a better chance of killing the damn thing than a _witcher_ showing up!" Bert hummed, and walked into the cellar, ignoring Pete, who argued and shouted and said the same things over and over again.

Bert hummed when Pete glowered and hissed "No witcher will show." Bert watched as Pete stalked back to his house, opposite Little Robbie's, who had been killed by the monster and whose friends watched him while he worked.

Bert hummed and gave Pete a whiskey on the house with twinkling eyes when a witcher with ashen hair sat at Pete's usual table, having killed a werewolf and brought back it's head. "Fuck off." Pete grumbled, eyes on the bard strumming a lute. His clothes reminded Pete of those some would wear at Bowdon and Pete had perhaps had a few too many drinks when he stumbled over to the witcher, glaring.

"Where were ya fourteen years ago?" Pete slurred at the man, who glowered up at him. "Because me brothers were killed by a ghoul and my mum said a witcher would save us." The witcher said nothing and Pete glared and gulped down some of his lager. "Where were ya ten years ago, when a monster killed my ma and my friend and bandits came and killed my brother and his wife. Where were you?"

And perhaps Pete had gone a bit crazy over the years, remembered too vividly Solom and Buln falling to the ground, finding his mother's body, blood sucked dry and slimy, watching his brother scream and cry and die at the hands of someone barely older than he was. But the witcher didn't care for Pete's anger and waved at Bert for another drink. His voice was deep and scratchy and scary as he paused and answered, "Not where I needed to be."

And so Pete sat down opposite the witcher, who had yellow eyes and two swords and could kill Pete easily. "Right." Pete said.

"The world isn't a nice place." The witcher continued, nudging a pint of lager over to Pete when Bert came round. "Shit happens."

"My nephew's barley older than I was." Pete said, voice soft and quiet. "He's off in the war, somewhere. I don’t know. Haven't heard from him in ages. And the- the girls. Having to find Robbie and Doug like that."

The witcher hummed. "Mary And Alice."

And Pete laughed, because of course this man would be in town for less than a day and a half and already knew them. "Yes!"

"It was Doug." The witcher said, voice quiet. Pete leaned in to hear him better. "The wolf. Be nice to them. Maybe don’t wear shirt when you next make a sword."

Pete snorted at this, frowning. "They're so young." And he wasn’t ashamed that voice he cracked, or that his throat was clogging up in front of this witcher because kids were kids, small and cute.

"Kids get it real tough, growing up somewhere like this. Witchers are usually made as children and toddlers, barely old enough to lift a sword." The witcher's face was grim as he took a sip of his drink, eyes wandering over Pete's shoulder.

"Geralt!" A voice crowed, a bundle of bright clothing and dark hair hopping onto the witcher's lap. Pete raised his eyebrows at the bard who waved. "I'm Jaskier."

"Of course."

"Yes." The bard, Jaskier, said, nudging Geralt. "Are you done? Because I think I saw a, er, dragon or something that needs slaying out back."

Pete snorted into his drink and waved the witcher off, who would visit the village multiple times a year and chat Pete up in front of Mary And Alice, who grew older every month. He would buy swords from Pete and ale from Bert and Jaskier would sing in the inn while Pete and his nephew and the witcher chatted. Pete supposed that perhaps he had rescued himself when he was younger, with his fast legs and his strong back and the family that was willing to die for him. He supposed that he would still be in Bowdon, which now had a cursed chapel and monster nests that the witcher had complained about, drinking himself sick, if a witcher had showed up when he was fourteen.

**Author's Note:**

> this is doo doo xoxoxoxo


End file.
